Deccan End Jinx At Home Ground, Crush Bangalore By 33 Runs

Hyderabad, Apr 14: Deccan Chargers snapped their seven-match losing streak at their home ground with a 33 run crushing of Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Indian Premier League match here tonight.Bharat Chipli first helped Deccan

Hyderabad, Apr 14: Deccan Chargers snapped their seven-match losing streak at their home ground with a 33 run crushing of Royal Challengers Bangalore in their Indian Premier League match here tonight.

Bharat Chipli first helped Deccan set up a big total of 175 for five with a blistering unbeaten 61 after being put into bat before the home side restricted RCB to 142/9 to break the jinx of not winning any of their seven previous matches at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium at Uppal here.

This was also Deccan's first win this season after losing their first two matches.

Deccan bowlers complemented the superb show by their batsmen with pacers Dale Steyn and Manpreet Gony taking three wickets each by conceding 24 and 31 runs respectively.

Ishant Sharma, Daniel Christian and Amit Mishra chipped in with one wicket apiece.

RCB, who lost to Mumbai Indians in their last match after starting their campaign on a winning note, suffered early jolt by losing four wickets inside seven overs and they could never recover from there.

Virat Kohli fought a lone battle with a superb 51-ball 71 which was studded with five fours and three sixes but he did not get support from his other RCB colleagues.

Chasing a stiff target of 176, RCB had just one substantial partnership -- 54 from 5.4 overs for the sixth wicket between Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara.Steyn and Ishant did the early damage to RCB with swing and bounce.

Ishant got success in his first over and the second of the innings by removing dangerous Tillakaratne Dilshan for just seven, caught behind by Deccan captain and wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara.

RCB sent in Zaheer Khan as one-down but the team-management's ploy to use him as pinch hitter failed as he was out for nought after facing three balls with a Steyn full toss crashing at the wickets. RCB were 16 for two in the third over.

Sangakkara brought in Gony in place of Steyn in the fifth over and Deccan got immediate success in the form of the wicket of opener Mayank Agrawal.

Agarwal holed out to Amit Mishra at mid-on while trying to play a big shot as RCB found themselves in trouble at 27 for three in the fifth over.

Gony added another wicket to his kitty by dismissing key man AB de Villiers for a seven-ball duck in the seventh over as RCB slumped to 29 for four and deep trouble.

Asking rate shot up to 12 an over by the 10th over at the end of which RCB could crore just 53 for four.

Saurabh Tiwary (7), who was bought for a huge sum in the auction, disappointed once again as he top-edged a Mishra delivery while trying for a big shot to bring down the asking rate for Sangakkara to take an easy catch.

Kohli and Pujara tried to keep the chase going on but the asking rate kept on climbing with their occasional fours making not much impact.RCB reached 92 for five at the end of 15 overs and by that time, the asking rate has shot up near 17 runs per over.Defeat was writing on the wall, but Kohli struck two consecutive sixes in the 16th over to take 16 runs of Mishra.

But the next over, Steyn removed Pujara and Johan van der Wath on consecutive deliveries to virtually end any remote chance of an RCB win.Kohli departed in the 18th over off the bowling of Gony after a superb innings while Ryan Ninan (3) was the ninth man out as RCB fell short of target by 34 runs.Earlier, Chipli smashed a blistering unbeaten 61 as Deccan Chargers produced a solid batting display to post 175 for five after being sent in to bat.

Deccan produced their best batting show so far with Chipli coming up with a strokeful 35-ball unbeaten 61 with the help of five fours and three sixes.Captain Kumar Sangakkara and opener Sunny Sohal chipped in with 36 and 38 respectively.For RCB, Zaheer Khan was the most successful bowler with three for 32 runs.

The home side made a decent start, reaching their 50 in the seventh over and 73 for two at the halfway mark before exploding in the last five overs with 61 runs for two wickets on a batting pitch.Opener Shikhar Dhawan (11) could not contribute much, falling in the third over to India pace spearhead Zaheer Khan as he mistimed a shot to hole out to RCB captain Daniel Vettori at mid-on.The other opener Sohal and Sangakkara took the fight to the opposition bowlers by stitching 50 runs for the second wicket from 6.1 overs before the former fell in the ninth over to a Ryan Ninan delivery to leave Deccan at 70 for two.Next man in Chipli delighted the home crowd with a flurry of big shots including a huge six off Tillakaratne Dilshan. Sangakkara joined in a brief run fest with a six off his Sri Lankan team-mate before he was out in the 15th over.Chipli and Sangakkara shared 43 runs in 5.4 overs to take Deccan to 114 for three at the end of 15 overs.

Deccan took 16 runs from the 16th over bowled by Ninan with Chipli hitting two consecutive sixes. Chipli then smashed three successive fours off Zaheer as Deccan got 15 runs from the 17th over. Birthday boy JP Duminy joined the party with a six off RCB captain Daniel Vettori.Deccan lost two wickets in the final over bowled by Zaheer—that of Duminy (22) and Daniel Christian (0) -- but Chipli ensured that his side reached the 175 mark. PTI